


LowRiders

by LynnaeKenzington



Series: Wraith!Ryan Drables and Shorts [3]
Category: Achievement Hunter
Genre: (secretly), Dark God!Ryan, Fake AH Crew, First God!Geoff, Gen, Geoff and Ryan are literally the only beings left that know magic, Geoff swears, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Jack and Ryan vs trauma, Lowriders Episode, Open ended, Plot Twists, Wraith!Geoff, Wraith!Ryan, trans!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 08:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13337022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynnaeKenzington/pseuds/LynnaeKenzington
Summary: The Crew were just having fun, and for once not doing anything illegal; but of course, being them, it just couldn't last.A tragedy and a miracle go hand in hand, and despite everything Jacklyn still isn't convinced that there is such a thing as magic.*****-----{Let's Play – GTA V – Lowriders}https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1cXh4tWqmsG5ZdDJZNSBO-2qjuFGYIFs¶ms=EAEYATgBSAFYiQFiC1I5YU9LNnZNY25VaIcB&v=5YC6ETYtySo&mode=NORMAL





	1. Chapter 1

They weren't even supposed to still be there. It was just convenient, with Gavin being Gavin, and Lil J and Micheal getting rowdy, to stick around the garage and the all too willing mechanic; even if it did mean they had to keep listening to Lamar jabber on forever. It was all just so much fun; and Geoff had plenty of cash to burn.

         Even before things got serious Jack knew that this had to have been the stupidest thing they'd done yet; the sheer number of bills they were feeding into those flimsy ass cars had to be a record for someone. They were all pretty careless about it: spending hours in customizing their new rides before bringing them out to the lot to test out their features. Geoff in particular was losing it a little; that ecstatic grin over his rising bounces casting all other worries from his mind, completely losing his shit when he realized that he could pop all the doors, hood and trunk.

         Even ever watchful Ryan, their steadfast and cool headed monster, had let himself go lax when it was his turn to get a ride, leaving the radar unguarded as the blip labeled Zutora went about its business a couple streets over. Jacklyn couldn't deny they were having too much fun for their own good, not really thinking when she and the others took their fun and games for a detour into the street; Geoff's infectious laugh leading them as he began to bounce his way down the middle of the three lane, the tired first in crime an energetic young hooligan once more, as their resident foolish havocs bust out at the sight. Micheal letting lose the joyful sounds he usually saved for pandemonium and subjecting others to his sadistic glee. His partner in crime, his 'boi' Gav, indistinguishable now as ever from a golden clad britty bird as he took off his pimped gleams in order to hold his beak in his fit of delight.

 

  
It all seemed to be going so well. Then life had to but in.

  
  
For once it wasn't the cops spoiling the fun; something Jack was semi grateful for seeing as they weren't actually doing anything that wrong. Sure they were _**them**_ , with their mere existence becoming a blip for the would-be-wanted level; but it wasn't like obstruction of traffic was something that got you arrested: theft or murder maybe, but you were more likely to get shot by someone with road rage behind you before any cops took interest.

  
No, this time it was something a lot more important than Ryan tracking home five stars.

 

Her game system crashed.

  
Not just some console tidbit toy either, her GTV---Greatest True Vice---account had been disconnected. Without it they wouldn't be able to practice heists accuracy together anymore; no more 'GibFree died' or 'Best Man Vagabond has killed you all' notifications before they finally got it right. It was a serious problem that could bring them real world consequences and possibly even drop them from their crew status; sending the Fake Achievement Hunters back into the nothingness they had spawned from. Back when that fake achievement of making it happen job to job was what they were really hunting for....

          "Shit." Jacklyn swore as she read the pm from the game. Jeremy noticed, asking and receiving the news before she slid into her new car and began to make her way back to Geoff's----or rather _**their**_ \---condo.

          She kept the radio on, monitoring the others coms while not actually communicating with her own. They sounded like they were still enjoying themselves, she even caught Ryan's laugh once or twice.

 

  
          It made her smile slightly.

 

  
  
Traffic was oddly smooth for the late afternoon, and when a traffic light turned on her she felt relaxed enough to actually obey the rules of the road for once. From what she could hear the guys were lining up their cars for some sort of 'running of the hoods', a few ows and snickers from Geoff and Ryan suggesting that didn't go so well.

           "What if we just got really close to each other then opened all our doors," Ryan's voice said over the coms, "you think we'd just _**crunch?"**_ He finished with sinister delight. Micheal laughed about that.

           "Wait, let me get back in my car." Geoff's voice called as he ran around.

 

  
None of them noticed the blip labeled Zutora vanishing off the radar.

 

  
  
             "Alright, three," Ryan said starting the count down, "---wait, so on go." Ryan clarified, Jeremy echoing him before the count recommenced. "So three, two, one; go."

_*~Click, Click, Click~*_

             The latches on the doors were tangible over the line through the rare silence.

             Then they all burst into laughter, Geoff's rising loudest of all.

 

  
  
Then an explosion ended the laughter. Jeremy and Micheal's screams being cut short as the line died completely.

 

  
  
Jack slammed on the breaks, skidding several feet and grinding her new chrome bumper into the assault. But she didn't care. Her heart had stopped. Shock filling her veins.

              _They couldn't....._

 

  
  
*****

 

  
  
              It as a daze.

              A haze of unfocused perceptions perceived from someone else's memories.

 

  
Jack didn't register getting back to Benny's.

Didn't register anyone's presence as the mechanics did whatever they were doing, faced with such a tragedy.

  
All she knew was that she was seeing herself---that same beautiful self Geoff had promised her when the woman was still a man, when they had first started their life of crime.

              She saw herself.

              And she was crying.

              Great blotchy tears bleeding down her face.

  
Lamar was shouting obscenities, waving his arms and pointing as someone made to put out the fires.

He had something at his feet that he'd dragged out of the pink car. Something that had on the charred remnants of a fine suit and bow tie, sporting a dumb beer hat on its head that it had been joking about just this morning.

  
Other such _**things**_ were being pulled from the cars. Being laid down a safe distance away.

  
       A white cowboy hat, now blacked with holes.

       Golden shades and 'piss boots', their plastic gleam now unrecognizable.

       A leather mass with curly red-brown hair drenched in blood.

 

  
Numbly Jack made her way to the last car, a van engulfed in flames, and began tugging something furry from where it slumped over the drivers seat.

  
  
         Ryan's Bane jacket.

 

  
  
He tumbled out into Jack's arms.

        She watched herself catch him.

  
His face was blank, like he was sleeping, and as she held him he seemed to settle against her chest.

          He looked so peaceful.

The new skull paint smeared into indistinguishable blobs making him appear ghostly.

          Like he was already one of the dead.

 

  
****

 

  
Jacklyn's hands shook.

          Beside her a heart monitor beeped away softly.

  
It was long after nightfall, the doctors and nurses done patching up her own cuts and burns. Caleb, Kerry, Mica, Matt, and Trevor had all been by to update her.

  
          They had found the one who did it.

          Zutora took the easy way out.

  
          No big hit. Nothing.

          Just a wannabe who had caught onto their unwitting opportunity.

 

  
An opportunity she had just barely missed.

 

  
The doctors were advising her against survivors guilt.

           She really didn't give a damn.

Someone should have been watching.

           Yet she'd helped Gavin in coaxing Ryan into the fun.

  
  
The emergency contacts had been notified for all of them.

Lindsay had nearly strangled the doctors for not doing anything more.

Griffin had to hold her back. Millie was somewhere safer, away from this mess.

Dan had been contacted in England, trusted in passing the word on to Gavin's grandparents.

At some point Jeremy's wife had arrived.

            Jack had hardly even known about her.

 

  
They had all made their way to the sides of their loved ones.

Lindsay was hosting a fierce vigil by Micheal's bedside.

Silent sobs crept out of Lil J's darkened room.

Halfway through the night Griffin had escorted Geoff as he was carried down to met Gavin in the morgue.  
  
            The heartbeat beside her continued its steady pace.

 

  
  
***

 

  
Ryan had no one.

He was a ghost.

No past. No family.

Only his missions.

And now the crew.

  
              But they were gone.

              They all had their own attendants.

 

  
  
He would be left to wait for life alone.

 

  
Jacklyn craned her neck back up to glance at him.

The lost, untrusting traveler they had taken in.

  
The only one he had ever been close to was Ray, but he was long gone.

That left Ryan with only himself, again.

 

  
She had been neglected by the fate that had befallen the rest of them.

                The least she could do was make sure he wasn't alone.

 

 

  
**

 

  
  
Jack didn't notice the tears trickling from her eyes again.

                  She hated how unharmed she was.

                  If she had just stayed, or called the rest to come with her, they could have all still been together.  
  
Instead she had everything, as she watched over the man with nothing.

  
  
                   Geoff and Gavin were both gone.

                   Jeremy wasn't far behind, his wife already being given the button that would pull the plug.

                   Lindsay had pulled a gun on the staff sent to retrieve Micheal, only wavering slightly as Griffin played stoic hostage negotiator.

 

She had everything they didn't, apart from still having them in her life.

 

  
  
Jack leaned in on herself, clutching her arms round her chest as sobs raked her body. Her nails dug bleeding red lines into the freckled flesh as their names and faces swam in her mind.

                    Her _family_. 

                    Her _**fault**_.

 

"Jack"

 

  
  
It was spoken softly, the voice deep like her own.

                     More tears were shed at its memory.

 

  
  
"Jack, ---Jack please look at me."

 

  
  
                    She shook her head, ginger curls waving with the motion, hiding her eyes from the vision.  
                    Her ears heard metal clicks as he kneeled before her, hands settling on her shoulders and sliding down to where she had clawed her arms.  
                    Through her tangled mats she caught glimpses of a red kilt and glinting bits of armor.

 

  
"Jack," Ryan's voice said, so close and clear he could have been real. "Jack, it's alright. It's okay."

 

  
  
She couldn't physically cry any more, but her sadness and grief settled in her stomach as she gave in to her delusions. She felt a half gloved hand rise up to part the curtain of hair blocking her face, revealing red bloodshot eyes still magnified by unshed tears.

  
                    Ryan looked like a king.

  
Not just his light armor, traced in gold, or the magnificent cloak and sash he wore over what could have been an ancient suit.

  
                    He was beautiful.

  
His face was clean of paint, revealing his stubble and the fact he was fully _alive_. Those piecing blue eyes agonizingly filled with concern, darting over her features as he cupped her face, analyzing every inch, mouth opened in a partial grimace. His hair was shorter, pulled into wavy bangs that parted before the cracked crown he wore.

                   He noticed her calming and untensed a little, chain link clicking somewhere hidden in his person. As he let out his breath she felt it tickle her nose.

 

  
"Jack... listen to me... it's okay. This is nobody's fault. We just got too caught up in things and let ourselves get careless." He turned her head so her eyes settled on him again, his expression one of such relief and kindness he could have been a completely different person. "And Jack, the fact you managed to not get caught up in this is a merciful miracle and a blessing." She threatened tears again and he held her tighter, forcing her attention back to him, "You may not realize it now Jack, but just by the fact of you taking care of us and getting us the help we needed matters more than anything else you could have done otherwise." His head dipped down, the hand at her side shaking slightly.

                   "If-if you had been hurt or died too...---" Ryan's breath seemed to catch in his chest, breathing back oncoming waves of panicked emotions, his grip becoming painfully real in her mind. "If it had been the six of us... I never would have been able to do anything about it. We would have just reset, or never lived at all." His grip loosened slightly as he closed his eyes and opened them again. Sharp blue a clear sky benign to the storm within him.

                   "But thanks to you it was only four of us..." his eyes slowly drifted up to her, the look of thankfulness and confusion heavily in his gaze. "You even saved **me**." His voice pleaded for answers he wasn't convinced he was untitled to know. "Out of all of us, the others were out you could see; you could have rushed to their sides, ensured they were safe---" his voice dropped to a childlike nothing. "But you went into the fire and got **_me_**. Thanks to you, worse or wrong, I'm still alive~."

                    _"Thank you, Jack...."_

 

  
She didn't know what to say to that, not even a sob providing itself in answer.

Ryan seemed to understand, his continued presence and ministrations helping to calm her more gently into her apparent insanity.

  
  
"It's okay Jack... everything is going to be alright now." The wraith of King Haywood assured her, "Thanks to you, everything is going to be okay."

 

  
Jacklyn sniffed at that. It took the ever royal several minutes to realize she was laughing. He leaned back in surprise, trying to understand where it was coming from. Her curly haired bob rose slowly, shaking slightly, a bright brilliant smile marred by tears and cold certainties.

           "I'm sorry Ryan, but it's _**not**_ okay." Another sad laugh escaped her, the pain it caused him visible across his face, "You're on the edge of death, everyone else is waiting for you to join them; and here I am, not dead, talking to my own imagination."

 

The look on his face... it was beyond broken-hearted. Like his soul had died in that moment. His grip loosened and fell away from her.  
           Then, just as he had so often done in life, he turned suddenly cold. Every emotion cut off as his face turned into its own kind of mask. He stood, clenched fists the only hint at the anger seething in his blood. And turned away from her completely.

 

  
*

 

Jack had no idea when exhaustion and sleep finally took her.

All she knew was that when she woke it was to screaming.

  
Her hand was on her pistol in seconds, mind disoriented and with the adrenaline high signaling emergency autopilot engaged.

It took Jack several moments to realize the screams were of glee and they were created by one Lindsay Jones.

  
               "Hey! Bitch! Off---Christ Linds I can't breathe!"

               "No! F that! I'm never going to let you out of my sight again! If we go we go together and with Gavin screaming our terrifying glory!"

 

  
  
Jacklyn froze, her brain trying to comprehend the meaning of the voice of the living dead.

                _Micheal...._

 

  
Groans and happy sobs started to drift in from Jeremy's room as well, a weary sleepy soul awakened by the others.

                "Err..? Oh, hey Kat. .... whoa, hey.. why you cry'en?"

 

A bird's shrieking squawk pierced this timid silence and was quickly followed by a grouchy gruff hallelujah in the form of every comparable swear known to mankind.

                "Caleb you F---!"

                A crash. Another alarmed bird.

                "Geoff you rudy right bastard! Wot you do that for!?"

                "Gav shut up and suck my---"

                Something seemed to catch his attention,

                "Caleb Denecour you screen cheating asswipe!--- Who the F-ing hell put my ass in the morgue!!?"

  
  
Geoff's voice ground it in for Jack, her legs trembling like nurse Denecour's voice as he too had to confront the recently undead. Her mind numbing with shock and relief at a reality that couldn't be true.

  
Without realizing it she was staring at Ryan, at the rise and fall of his shallow breathing, waiting for he too to suddenly burst into full health.

  
                He didn't.  
                If anything the ghost of the king only looked closer to the death he had so nearly escaped.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
Jacklyn Pattillo was not one to believe in magic.

That said James Ryan Haywood most certainly did.

 

  
They may have both been at times men of medicine and science, (with the aforementioned change coming only to the 'man' part); but it was clear from Ryan's basement laboratory and his every superstition that the Vagabond was known in the arts of every definition of blood magic: from basic surgery, cloning and gene splicing---to murder and butchery---to summoning demons in hell circles.

Ryan was as sure of magic as he was the make up of atoms and the location of earth in the universe. As if he'd made it up himself.

  
He'd tried to explain some of it to Jack before, but she hadn't payed attention; leaving Gavin and Jeremy to be the oddballs avidly donating to the cause.

From DNA to odd species of flowers that Jeremy practically worshipped night and day appearing in her humble farm before being dragged over to Geoff's drunken experiments with pet thief chickens: the younger lads were drawn to the magical wonder their madman offered.

  
Ray had been like that once; conjuring up a never withering rose vine in a manor of days under Ryan's do diligence. The same winter rose he had mourned over when the Lad had said his goodbyes....

 

  
Jacklyn herself didn't believe in magic.

Seeing King Ryan had been a tragic delusion.

            Three men rising from the grave, and one from his last breath....

 

  
            He was going to tell her it'd been magic.

            When he woke that's what he would tell her.

 

  
Jacklyn brushed some lose strands of his ponytail away from his face.

  
            So she wasn't going to tell.  
            Confirm or deny, her answers would only come with silence.

 

  
***

 

 

Geoff had wanted to leave the clinic as soon as he had revived, apparently unfazed by the whole experience as if he expected it. But Caleb had flat forbid it, and Griffin, ever the voice of reason, had calmed her husband back into a tolerable rage as he sat through test after test growling like a pissy puma.

Micheal on the other hand had sort of shrugged off the trauma himself, yet was so far unsuccessful in shaking Lindsay. Bonnie had handcuffed herself to her Clyde and snoozed while he laughed at Gavin's exasperated expense. Having been dead at the scene Gav was at the center of the mad science huddle, with Micheal cackling at every opportunity.

 

  
By the end of two weeks the crew were finally allowed to escape, with plan g racing for the door.

 

  
It was unnerving how quickly things went back to normal once they were all safely back in their own home.  
             Few scrapes, couple bruises; nothing more than a rough job could have done.

 

Everything was business as usual.

  
            It felt like it had after Ray left.

            That part of the daily routine incomplete without their missing member.

 

  
They were acting like Ryan had never existed: his name silenced before it could be spoken, all his belongings forming a Finches' memorial to ghosts once living.

 

  
            It was almost a month like this.  
            A month after it had happened.  
            That Ryan finally came home.

 

 

****

 

 

            He hadn't been discharged.  
            Most seemed to know better than to stand in the Vagabond's way.

He just showed up at their house, same as he had when they first met.

 

Jack opened the door....

                 ....and a misunderstood murder strode in and walked right past her into the kitchen without saying a word.

 

  
*****

 

 _"Geoffrey~^" Jack trilled, his voice seeking out his hungover friend and boss, meanwhile keeping his eyes trained on the skull masked man who was at that moment lazily peeling an apple with a throwing knife and paying the bearded trans in a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt no mind whatsoever.  
            Geoff and his equally ridiculous drunkards beard leaned round a corner, bottle still in hand and lazy eyes squinting at the sight before him. "Ah, yeah, shit Jack." Ramsey said shrugging sheepishly, "'fergot Ryan was coming."_  
_Jack's eyes swung to the intruder then onto Geoff and back again. "Ryan?" He repeated cynically. The black skull nodded and gave a cheerful wave that did not at all suit his current creepy-as-hell esthetic._  
_Geoff gave a shrug. "Yeah, you know; Vagabond. 'e's the mercenary we hired with Mogar." The boss surveyed the two for a sober moment. "'Thought you'd both get 'long better; he doesn't talk much and he grows cactus alright. 'sumed you'd just click."_

  
_It was Jack and Ryan's turns to size each other up, trying to figure out what Geoff could have possibly seen in common between them._

  
_"Yeah, I don't know either." A deep voice said to accompany a shrug of broad leather bound shoulders. Jack blinked it surprise. Geoff smirked._

  
_"Team same voice it is then."_

 

 

**

 

 

It'd been years since then, and Jack still hardly seemed to know anything more about the man himself.

             They always said the best way to learn was to ask.

 

 

*

 

 

Ryan it turned out was outside in the little training course he had set up for himself. He stood in a shaded corner, shirtless in broad daylight, doing his best to coach his body back into the motions. It was certainly not the first time he'd had to go through this; as shifting patterns on his back alone clearly showed. By now he was pretty sure he was more scar than scarred, having had more gunshots, stab wounds, and burns than cash Geoff had doled out on liquor.  
             Like the feeling in those places Ryan had grown numb to his pain, able to take any punishment the world deemed suitable for the Vagabond; as long as that pain was solely inflicted on him physical. He could and had on several occasions waged through flames and gunfire without really noticing, his body forgetting to tell when he was hurting, when some of that pooling red wasn't just from contact with his victims.  
             It was times like that he needed somebody, a partner, a crew---- someone who could look at him and see the pain he could no longer bare to feel, the agony that went on unnoticed until it'd surfaced at last in time to drag him down towards his own inevitable fate.

 

  
             Someone who could care for Ryan, and not end up another stain drawn upon the Mad King's score.....

 

He shook himself, driving the glazed look from his eyes. This wasn't the time. It was _**never**_ the time to brood on that. Now was the time for work, and in this case that meant fixing himself back up again.  
             Ryan made for the pull bar, his squats and stretches long forgotten. He looked up at it, the sun catching and shining in his sky eyes and pulling gold from his faded auburn. He blinked the light away and gripped the bar with cautious hands, testing its durability.

 

He sighed, knowing what was about to happen, and pulled.

 

  
             Every single remaining nerve in Ryan's body screamed out in protest, the motion causing his muscles to ripple involuntary under his tight skin. He was quite literally trembling under his own weight, every fibrous tissue from arm to back and core to flank were stretched visibly taunt. His body’d had too much, but his head hadn't listened: he hung there in form for several more seconds, deaf to the whimpering coming out of his own mouth.

 

             Then that was it.  
             His hands let go, his legs came apart and began to flail.

 

Ryan's eyes opened wide, disoriented, as something called gravity dragged him back onto the ground.

 

 

He hit hard, flat on his bare back, now fully aware of the stress his body had just gone through. He was breathing hard, trying vainly to regain the air that'd just fled him. Ryan openly moaned, something in his brain broken by the utter betrayal of his strength.  
             Through weary dazed eyes he realized Jack was leaning over him, one hand to hold back the curly red bob that impeded her view, face framed by her hair and backlighted by the morning sun, a slight glow gracing her freckles as it bounced off his own deathly pale flesh.

 

             For some reason he couldn't hold back a slight smile, a nonverbal chuckle rocking his chest.  
             Then his brain kicked back in, and the smile faded as he realized Jack was talking to him, trying to figure out how hurt he felt.

 

Ryan couldn't speak, but he tried to push himself up only to fall back with a hiss and wince. Jacklyn was yelling at him now, her words not quite reaching him; although he was pretty sure they were along the lines of "you is stupid". Ryan chuckled again, this time laughing at the ridiculous way his brain failed; just now getting how hilarious he must have sounded every time they had accused him of 'flubbing'.  
             Jack seemed incensed, annoyed with herself over what'd happened to break Ryan like this. She really didn't think her trying to help him was that funny.  
             "Com'on, snap out of it." Jack fussed, giving the side of Ryan's cheek a few light slaps. The look on his face was so confused and strange that she immediately regretted trying to help, leaning back and turning away a little. It was several moments before Ryan pulled himself up into a sitting position amongst a few more grunts of pain. Jack didn't turn round as she felt Ryan's eyes on her, the acward pause stretched between them as she felt herself begin to flush.

 

  
             This only made her fume more; it wasn't her fault if Ryan was so---so----

 

  
             "It's okay." Jack's head whipped around to gaze at Ryan, his own face unreadable. "It's okay Jack."

 

 


End file.
